NHL 09 Community Event Info
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The NHL 09 community event was held back at the start of April, and with the embargo having been lifted the first reports have made their way out. A lot more is discussed than what was recently profiled by Gamespot. Included are gameplay related improvements, Be A Pro details, EA Sports World integration, custom sounds (similar to how they are used in NCAA Football 09), a new fighting system, and much more. I’ve linked to several write-ups below.
Console Sports
Crash The Net
The Breakaway
5WG
Building on what many labeled as the best sports game last year, the list of improvements and new features for this year are certainly extensive, with more apparently to come next month including the “massive” feature referenced by Gamespot.
June 10, 2008 at 7:32 am
Did I read that correctly??? NHL 09 is using the Euphoria Engine?!?!?!
“NHL 09 uses the smartest physics engine on the video gaming market. That is the Euphoria is a game animation engine created by NaturalMotion based on Dynamic Motion Synthesis, NaturalMotion’s proprietary technology for animating 3D characters on-the-fly “based on a full simulation of the 3D character, including body, muscles and motor nervous system”. Instead of using predefined animations, the characters’ actions and reactions are synthesized in real-time; they are different every time, even when replaying the same scene. While traditional physics engines uses ragdolls (like the Havok Physics Engine) for animations generated on the fly, Euphoria employs a more complex method to animate the entirety of physically-bound objects within the game environment. Euphoria runs on the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC platforms.”
Wow…if true that is really a stunner to me, esepcially since the EA guys at Tiburon said absolutely NOTHING about such a move for an EA-released game. I have been basically begging for Euphoria to be used in NCAA and Madden since 2006 to no avail…if this true then NHL 09 is easily my most anticipated release of the fall-sports games now…
June 10, 2008 at 7:54 am
one word………three letters…………………WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
June 10, 2008 at 7:56 am
I’m pretty sure he was just overly excited and then took general info from wikipedia. My understanding of what I’ve read is that it uses them for a set of new checking animations, but isn’t like they’re going the “Backbreaker” ragdoll route where every hit is supposedly different. As stated by Ian Cummings, Madden actually has had animations using the tech since 06. So I wouldn’t look at this as some huge breakthrough.
June 10, 2008 at 8:22 am
I only have one feeling about this game….Euphoria…Sept 9 2008 cannot get here any quicker. My girlfriend is expecting our first child in November and I don’t care what she says NHL 09 is all mine !!
Best NHL ever !!
June 10, 2008 at 9:23 am
haha, congrats w/the kid bro…..Pasta, any word yet if they will be including classic teams and/or classic jerseys (oops, I mean sweaters) to go along w/classic NHL 94 controls????? This was by far my favorite game last year, and w/the way Madden is shaping up I might have to jump to NBA Live’s boat too!
June 10, 2008 at 9:36 am
EA baby! Thought I’d never say that…………………………………………
June 10, 2008 at 9:52 am
THIS GAME IS GONNA BE BAD ASS!!!!!
June 10, 2008 at 9:58 am
I heard thru another forum that classic jerseys will be a part of the next game. Thanks for the congrats as well !!
June 10, 2008 at 10:10 am
Yeah, I kinda figured that they would throw in more jerseys. Last year was the whole Reebok thing and I heard that they were really limited in what they could do.
June 10, 2008 at 10:24 am
pasta, thats not true, he didn’t take the info from wikipedia. I know one of the guys who went from thebreakaway, and I’ve seen two or three guys say it uses euphoria who went to the event.
On the console sports writeup he says “Source: Wikipedia” because he copied & pasted a paragraph describing what Euphoria was from there.
That being said, it doesn’t look like the best implementation of Euphoria from the trailer, or the trailer is running on the 08 engine (which is very possible since the equipment in there is older than the new screenshots).
June 10, 2008 at 10:30 am
Delay of Game: If you play the puck over the glass: 2 minutes
Worried this one will happen everytime it goes over glass…
Anyway looks like a great effort. NHL seems to be getting closer and closer to FIFA in terms of features, which is what I like to see. Now please bring in some older jerseys!
June 10, 2008 at 12:45 pm
OK, I was at the event.
It wasn’t the Euphoria engine, it was something they called the “endorphin” engine and they said that it’s not full rag doll physics. The animations are still canned, but there’s over 300 of them.
June 10, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Endorphin and Euphoria are both made by NaturalMotion. I thought they were the same thing, but they are slightly different products. Euphoria does the animations dynamically, and Endorphin is a system to synthesize realistic animations. Thats why the hitting doesn’t look as realistic as I thought it would, because its not Euphoria as you mentioned. I’m hoping next year they switch over to Euphoria.
June 10, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I just bought a PS3 and NHL 08 for it looks like shit compared to the 360 version. So bad that I took it back less than an hour after I rented it.
June 10, 2008 at 1:14 pm
OK, now that we got that all cleared up now….;)
June 10, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Ahhhhhhhh. I hate smart people, they make me feel so dumb! I just like pressing buttons…………….